The Sudbury School Murders (18 page)

I admitted that it was. Sir Montague grinned
at me. "Who else, then, would want to see Middleton dead?" he
asked. "He worked for James Denis, then retired and became a groom
at a boys' school in the country. A man like that could have
murderous enemies from his past, of course, one of whom trailed him
to the school."

"But surely a stranger would be noticed in a
small place like Sudbury," I argued, remembering what Grenville had
said about gossip in small towns. "Someone would mention a
mysterious stranger who arrived, and then disappeared after the
murder."

"Yes, mysterious strangers are always
convenient. But alas, we do not have one in this case." He made a
motion of dusting off his hands. "Therefore, we must look among the
people of the nearby towns and the school. You describe them well,
you know," he remarked, eyes merry. "Not in a way they'd find
flattering, I'd imagine. Take Mr. Rutledge himself. Driven to run
the school on the tightest discipline, a violent man in his own
right."

I absently ran my thumb along the handle of
my cup. "I have not ruled out Rutledge. If I can imagine anyone
grabbing a large man like Middleton and slicing his throat, it is
Rutledge. But as far as Rutledge's servants contend, Rutledge did
not leave his bed that night."

"But you say that Rutledge grew angry and
worried when you told him of the connection between Middleton and
James Denis. Perhaps he knew of it already. Perhaps Rutledge feared
Middleton for some reason--Middleton blackmailed him, Middleton was
watching him for Denis--and Rutledge, in a panic, decided to do
away with him."

"I will be asking James Denis if there is any
connection," I said. "Denis professes that he is unhappy about
Middleton's death."

Sir Montague eyed me shrewdly. "There is not
many a man in England who can simply decide to question Mr. Denis.
You are unique, Captain. I do hope you will tell me what he
says."

I gave him a nod. "Of course."

Sir Montague tapped his forefinger. "So . . .
there is Rutledge. Next is, who? Mr. Sutcliff is seen by Mr.
Ramsay, who swears he ran after Middleton. What about Mr. Sutcliff?
Why would he want Middleton dead?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea. He's a nasty bit
of goods, though. None of other boys can stick him. Ramsay is so
terrified that the lads will think he's cut from the same cloth
that he is willing to put snakes in my bed and smoke cheroots
behind the wall with the others." I thought a moment. "I have no
idea why Sutcliff would kill Middleton, but he is a large enough
lad. He could do it if he took Middleton by surprise. However, I
have it that Sutcliff spent that night in bed with his mistress in
Hungerford. The timing is wrong for him, as well. My actress friend
tells me he was with Jeanne Lanier all night."

"Did she see him?" Sir Montague asked. "Or
only hear him?"

"That is a point," I conceded. "Marianne is
shrewd enough to realize the difference, but I will ask her."

Sir Montague nodded, then continued. "There
are plenty of others. The lockkeeper himself, who never heard a
body being pushed into his lock. The stable hand, Thomas Adams, who
manufactures a quarrel to point to the Romany."

"The lockkeeper lives alone," I pointed out,
"so he has no one to vouch for him. And again, the stable hands
noticed nothing all night. So either he or Adams
could
have
done it."

"And the tutors? Fletcher, the Classics
tutor?"

"Fletcher is not very big. Middleton could
easily have fought him off, even if he took Middleton by surprise.
And I cannot imagine him being brave enough to lure Middleton to
that remote place by the canal. The same with Tunbridge, the
mathematics tutor."

"Tunbridge, you say, often went riding."

"Yes. A tenuous connection, if any. As far as
I can see, Tunbridge spends his time schooling his favorite pupil,
a sixteen-year-old boy who is apparently quite brilliant. He gives
the lad private lessons." I'd heard a few of the other boys
sniggering about those private lessons, but I'd not yet formed my
own opinion.

"Well, it looks as though you need to find
out much more about Middleton," Sir Montague said. "The canal maps
are interesting. Why should a man like Middleton keep false maps of
the Kennet and Avon Canal? You found no other papers?"

"No. Anything that could explain the maps had
either never existed or been taken away."

"Indeed. I have come to respect your
opinions, Captain. There is definitely more going on at the Sudbury
School than meets the eye." His eyes twinkled. "I might fancy a
holiday in the country."

My heart lightened. I'd hoped he'd be
interested. Sir Montague was a busy man; I could not think how he
would escape his duties to come to Berkshire, but I was happy that
he would make the attempt.

"Now then," he said, "I suppose you're off to
do what every uncorrupt magistrate in London wishes to do--question
James Denis."

My good humor dimmed. "He allows me to
question him only because he knows I can do nothing against
him."

Sir Montague's look turned wise. "Can you
not?"

"I do not see what," I said irritably. "He
tells me he finds me a threat, but I believe he exaggerates."

"Do you?" Sir Montague smiled. "Well, I do
not. I believe that Mr. Denis is a very intelligent man. Very
intelligent, indeed."

*** *** ***

I left Whitechapel and took a hackney to
Mayfair, arriving at James Denis' Curzon Street house as darkness
fell.

I did not have an appointment, but Denis
seemed to expect me. The correct and cold butler who opened the
door took me upstairs to Denis' study without asking for my card or
telling me to wait.

As I entered Denis' elegant but rather
austere private study, James Denis put aside whatever letter he was
writing and rose from his desk.

James Denis was a fairly young man, not much
more than thirty. His face was long and thin, but handsome, or
would have been were it not so cold. His hair was brown, and he was
tall, almost my height. His blue eyes were flinty hard, as though
he'd viewed the world for a long time and found it wanting. If an
old, jaded man had been reborn and decided to take the world by its
heels the second time around, that man would be James Denis.

He did not offer to shake my hand. The butler
brought a wing chair across the room to the desk, and I sat,
grateful, in truth, to ease my leg. The ride in the hackney had
been chilly, long, and jostling.

The butler then brought a tray with a
decanter of brandy and two crystal glasses, poured us each a
measure, and silently departed.

We were not left alone, however. As usual,
two large, burly men had taken up stations, one at each window, to
watch over Denis and his guest. Once upon a time, Middleton had
shared this task. What must it be, I thought suddenly, to have so
many enemies that one could not sit alone in a room in one's own
house?

I let the brandy sit untasted, although Denis
took up his glass and sipped delicately.

"Oliver Middleton left my employ
voluntarily," he said, as though we were already in the middle of a
conversation. "He'd tired of the city and wanted the simple life of
the country."

"So might many a man," I agreed.

Denis opened a drawer of his desk and pulled
out a folded paper. "Middleton spied you the moment you arrived,
you know. He wrote me of it."

He handed me the paper. It was a letter,
addressed in a painfully neat hand, the creases soiled. I unfolded
it. The note was short and to the point. "That captain's come.
Should I do anything?"

I raised my brows and slid the paper back to
him. "How did you respond?"

Denis dropped the letter back inside the
desk. "I wrote him with instructions to leave you strictly alone.
He agreed. He said he would avoid you in case his temper got the
better of him."

"That explains why I never saw the man in the
stables."

Denis did not change expression. "Did you
know that Middleton had received threatening letters?"

"No," I said, surprised. The school's
prankster had sent letters in blood to a few students, so Rutledge
had told me, but I had not heard that Middleton had received
any.

Again, Denis dipped into his desk and pulled
out a stack of letters. I wondered whether he had kept all
Middleton's correspondence near at hand in anticipation of my
visit.

"The letters implied that the writer knew who
Middleton was and that he had once worked for me," he said.
"Middleton sent me the bundle and asked me what to do about
it."

He let me leaf through the letters. Each were
printed in careful capitals, and each held a similar message. "You
cannot hide your past misdeeds. Retribution is at hand," one said.
Another: "You came to find peace. Hell has followed you."

"A touch gruesome," I said. "I would not have
liked to receive them."

"They did not worry Middleton, particularly,"
Denis said, gathering the letters and refolding them. "He was a
very practical man. He did not fear words. At first, he reasoned
that the letters were from one of my enemies, a threat to me in
general." He dropped his gaze. "He assumed I would take care of it.
It bothers me that I failed him." He folded the last letter with
unnecessary firmness, the first time I had ever seen anything but
coolness from James Denis.

"A moment," I said. "You said that he thought
the threat a general one,
at first.
Did he change his
mind?"

Denis pushed the letters aside with long
fingers. "He did. He sent me another message, saying that he'd
discovered who had written the threats. The tone was one of
irritation. He informed me that he would take care of the
matter."

"And he did not say who?"

"No." He looked up at me, eyes quiet with
anger. "If he did take care of the matter, I never heard. He was
killed first."

Denis was bothered. I had never seen him so
bothered. Uncharitably, I wondered whether his concern came from
fellow feeling or the fear that he'd be perceived as weak if one in
his employ was harmed. Both, possibly.

Denis lifted the last of Middleton's
correspondence and handed it to me. I read the letter, which was
brief and terse and said exactly what Denis had told me it did.

"From his tone," I said, "he seems to have
decided the culprit weak and easy to dispatch."

"Yes, he is contemptuous."

I considered. "He could not mean Rutledge.
Rutledge would rather bellow threats than write them in letters,
and I cannot think of Rutledge as weak and easy to dispatch. Nor
would Sebastian, the Romany arrested for his murder, be. Also,
Sebastian cannot read, or so he claims."

"A tutor," Denis suggested.

"Or a pupil." I thought of Sutcliff. Was he
the sort of young man who would threaten people from afar? Or would
he, like Rutledge, prefer to bellow at them face to face? "But what
on earth would anyone gain by threatening Middleton? He had no real
power at the school. He had a connection to you, but you tell me
he'd retired."

I studied the letter again. It also included
a line that Middleton had something of interest to speak to Denis
about, and hoped he could do so when he next visited London. "What
had he intended to tell you? Was he involved in something for
you?"

Denis twined his fingers before him. "I must
assure you, Captain, that I am as in the dark as you in this
matter. Middleton was no longer working for me. He was not young
any more, he was tired, he wanted to work with horses again. I
found him employment in the stables at the Sudbury School."

I raised my brows. "You found him employment?
That might explain why Rutledge grew nervous when I revealed I knew
you. Did Rutledge owe you a favor?"

Denis gave me a wintry smile. "Let us focus
on the problem at hand, Captain."

I had not really thought he'd give me an
answer. I told him then of the canal maps that Grenville and I had
found in Middleton's room. Denis' brow knit. "Middleton never
mentioned canals to me. At Hungerford, you say? I have heard
nothing of any such scheme."

Though his expression remained unchanged, I
sensed his annoyance. Denis did not like to be uninformed of or
surprised by anything.

I also sensed that one of his tame pugilists
was watching us. The man's hands were twitching, and he kept taking
a step forward, then a step back, as though unable to decide
whether to cross to the desk. I caught his eye. Denis, noticing my
interest, looked that way as well.

The man cleared his throat. "Begging your
pardon, sir."

Unlike Rutledge, who hated when his servants
interrupted, Denis merely focused a calm gaze on his lackey, waited
for him to speak.

The man's voice was gravelly, his
working-class accent thick. "I saw Ollie Middleton, sir, in London
a month or so back. We had a pint. He said how he remembered why he
hated the country, all mud and sheep shit up to his knees, but he
would be all right soon. He was going to make his fortune, he said,
and eat off gold plates."

"Did he?" Denis asked, arching one thin
brow.

"That he did, sir. He did say something about
canals. It sounded daft. I thought it was just him going on."

Denis gave him a severe look. "I could wish
you had told me this before."

The man, as hard-bitten as he was, looked
slightly apprehensive. "Sorry, sir. I didn't think it meant
nothing."

"No matter." He kept his unwavering gaze on
his lackey for a moment before finally turning away. The man moved
back to his position, nervously fingering his collar.

"Perhaps he'd invested in these false canals,
then," Denis said to me, "believing he'd grow rich. Though I would
be surprised to learn he was that gullible. It would be likely that
he was fooling others into investing with him."